EU Survey Finds 90% of European Jews Feel Heightened Anti-Semitism

 

A new survey conducted by the European Union’s Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) found that nearly 90% of European Jews feel that anti-Semitism has increased in their home countries over the past five years. Close to 30% report being harassed at least once in the last year. The EU poll is the largest ever of its kind, interviewing more than 16,000 Jews from 12 different European Union member states. Among those who participated in the online survey, 85% rated anti-Semitism as the biggest social or political problem in their respective countries and 38% claimed that they have considered emigrating because they feel insecure as Jews. A salient majority of British Jews surveyed noted how the growth of anti-Semitism in domestic political life, highlighted by the anti-Jewish sentiments of Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, has forced them to consider leaving the UK. Furthermore, about 95% of French Jews perceive anti-Semitism as a “very big” or “fairly big” problem. FRA Director Michael O’Flagerty commented how Jews’ heightened sense of insecurity caused by anti-Semitism has become “disturbingly normalized” and “shocking” in the decades after the Holocaust. The survey also indicates that perpetrators of anti-Semitic harassment come from both the political left and right. It shows how the most common anti-Semitic statements are “comparisons between Israelis and the Nazis with regard to the Palestinians” and “suggestions that Jews have too much power.”

The EU survey was published in the wake of last month’s CNN poll, which found that a staggeringly high level of Europeans harbor anti-Semitism in some form. CNN explains how widespread defamation of Jews—especially in Europe— is a result of the increasingly faded memory of the Holocaust; more than a third of Europeans have either never heard of or know only scant information about the Nazi genocide. Of even greater alarm is the measurably high rates of apathy and indifference among younger Europeans. In France, 20% of young adults have never heard of the Holocaust. The EU’s FRA has advocated for continued Holocaust education and “awareness raising activities,” to inform the next generation and protect Jewish communities safe from violence and hate crimes.

Dr. Jonathan Boyd, the executive director of the London-based Institute for Jewish Policy Research, acknowledged the stark reality of the EU poll but also noted that the renewed frequency of anti-Semitism is “part of a wider social change or malaise that is causing general instability.”  The intensity of anti-Semitism may be a product of various external global dynamics. However, the alarming increase in anti-Jewish vitriol and concomitant growth in Jews’ heightened sense of insecurity indicates that anti-Semitism is an independent phenomenon that must be addressed directly and potently.